Praetorian Rising

the buffoon Grenswald, a foul-mouthed, grubby man thicker than he was tall, came to town in a cloud of stale whiskey and body odor. He would barrel his way from door to door, collecting items he deemed "presentable" to the High King’s court. Even though Camille had only lived in Sierra Village for a year, she clearly understood what it meant to hate the High King, his cruel Moon Tax, and the disgusting people he kept readily at his beck and call to maintain total sovereignty.
Camille led Lunci further up the hill toward the heart of the village, snapping twigs and rustling leaves as she did so. Ducking around a relatively large boulder and scurrying through a thick bush, she hid, waiting for Lunci to reach her spot. She hunched down and slowed her breath to an inaudible pace, but after a few moments realized she no longer heard Lunci in the distance.
Her stomach clenched, a searing jolt of panic zipping through her system at the sudden silence of her surroundings. What if Lunci was hurt? Would she have heard Lunci if he screamed? Camille bounded out of the underbrush and still heard nothing but her own ragged breaths—not even a distant bird call. Something was wrong. She felt the unleashed gallop of her heart pounding out a thunderous tempo inside her chest. Usually, Neeko would bounce back and forth between her and Lunci, his tracking senses far superior to any human's. But she didn't even see his bushy black tail anywhere amongst the darkening forest terrain.
No need to panic, she reminded herself, trying to calm the erratic burst of fear crashing through her body. Last week, Lunci had gotten distracted by a small family of squirrels in the trees, but Camille had been high up on the hill and observed him the entire time. This was different. She couldn't hear him at all, couldn't see him, and the forest's ever-present cacophony of twitters had stilled.
The eerie silence cut into her calm reserve, grating against her skin with unrelenting harshness, and just like when she slipped into hunting mode, a tingling, unnatural heat grew beneath her eye sockets.
She grasped her hunting knife tightly before racing back through the forest along the path she'd just taken. This time she was silent, shifting through the damp leaves and twigs beneath her feet without the slightest sound. In the distance were heavy footfalls pounding against the earth directly north of where she'd last heard Lunci.
"Please don't be hurt; please be ok," she whispered on repeat under her breath as she moved. There was no way she would allow the what ifs to cloud her focus. Lunci had to be ok, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if anything happened to him.
Rounding a tree she'd passed earlier, Camille stopped dead in her tracks to listen. She heard distant voices from the village, a subtle hum of wind whistling through the trees, but no sign of the boy.
"Lunci?" Camille said evenly, trying to keep her voice neutral. "Lunci, it's time to get home now." Nothing.
"Lunci! Neeko!" Camille repeated, not caring any longer whether she sounded worried.
What if he was on the ground bleeding from an attack? What if she'd overestimated her ability to keep him protected from such a distance?
An internal flood of dread permeated her system making it almost impossible to think—and that's when she saw them through a thick bramble bush: heavy-lidded, blood-red eyes the size of her fists and oddly human in appearance.
Fear invaded her senses, leaving her frozen on the spot. She'd heard of a shadow beast, a monster roaming Aspera in the dead of night: The Chimera.
Soft footsteps came treading up the path behind her, and Camille's back went rigid; Lunci had found her.
"Lunci! Don't come any closer," she instructed, keeping her focus on the stark red eyes. Her tear ducts began to water in her desperation to keep the red eyes in sight, but the moment she blinked, the gleaming red stare was gone. She held stiff and silent, counting the seconds before the monster decided to attack.
"A little jumpy there, sweetheart?"
Camille leaped a foot in the air as a sultry voice assaulted her tender, overly aware ears. Whipping around with her knife at the ready, she careened off-focus when she located the man who'd addressed her. "Who are you?"
Leaning against an ancient tree, arms casually folded across his chest, stood a young man not much older than she. Blonde wavy hair fell back from his angular face, with both sides shaved and the top left long. The man dragged a hand through his thick strands, gaze never leaving her. His irises were the strangest hue Camille had ever seen: a bleached blue, almost devoid of color; like the bright tinge of the sky at high noon.
"Well hello to you too," he responded, pushing away from the trunk to saunter closer, a broad grin spanning his face. He glanced at the dagger she still held and chuckled. "You thinking of stabbing me? Or do I get a proper hello?"
Camille kept the knife raised, a slight tremor in her hand. "Stay back stranger, who are you?"
She fought to keep the raging monster coiling inside her from surging to the forefront. She'd spent the past eleven moons working to keep her inner beast on a tight leash. It had taken several moon cycles living under Peter's roof to understand that her wild range of emotions didn’t have a specified direction or focus. When she was happy, she was ecstatic; when Camille was annoyed, she became unreachable; fear turned into unimaginable terror, and anger transformed into explosive fury. Nothing was at equilibrium within Camille, raging out of control at the tiniest shift.
The stranger's brows knit together with apparent confusion, his lips pursing in contemplation. "Do you not recognize me?" he asked softly, all form of humor dissipating.
"No," Camille snapped. "Should I?"
"How long have you lived in this village?" he said, ignoring her question.
"That's none of your business."
He shook his head.